


not for the faint of heart

by pasdecoeur



Series: superbat works [8]
Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, OT3, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-07 05:38:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17954597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdecoeur/pseuds/pasdecoeur
Summary: Clark opens a door that was meant to stay closed. Things spiral.or, What Not To Do When You’ve Fallen in Love with Batman: A Guide by Hal Jordan & Clark Kent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Not Your Average Tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3900298) by [FabulaRasa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa). 



> i cannot BELIEVE i forget to add the inspiration thing, i am literally the dumbest bitch i know.

It was the heartbeats that roused him from his sleep. Clark liked sleeping on the Watchtower, the predictable churn of noise patterns, and beyond it, the endless sweet gulf of silence. It felt like a cocoon, the press of something soft and familiar—Clark felt like he was sinking into it, into all that auditory deprivation, and he never slept better anywhere else.

So the sudden, rapid ratchet of a pair of heartbeats triggered a response as it wouldn't have Earthside. Clark tracked the source of it—not someone's private quarters, not the training areas, not even the monitoring room which might have signaled an impending crisis. No, this was coming from the locker rooms.

Clark blurred into uniform within a second. Tensions had been running high all day, today: the last attack by the Legion had been harder than usual to neutralize, and it had taken its toll on morale.

He reached the gym within another second, the heartbeats cranking higher, faster, and then he heard that soft, quiet sound of—

“Bruce, _fuck_ ,” a voice rasped, and Clark stopped at the door, staring.

Bruce was still in the Batsuit, albeit with the cowl shoved back, and he had—

he had—

he had _Hal Jordan_ pinned against the lockers, had his mouth on Hal’s mouth, his hands on Hal’s chest, on his hips, under that leather jacket, had his thigh wedged between Hal’s legs. Clark could see the minute, steady roll of the Lantern's hips—he was hard, so hard, Clark could smell it in the air, the scent of clear, slick precome, Hal _and_ Bruce, they were both so hard it must have started to _ache_. Hal was grinding his cock against Bruce’s thigh, is why his hips were moving like that, grinding against that hard, firm muscle, while his hands tangled in Bruce’s dark, thick hair. He was letting Bruce fuck his mouth with his tongue, _moaning_ around it, greedy for it.

Bruce pulled away to bite at his jaw, to nip at his throat, from where those sounds were vibrating, and Hal was saying, “Oh, _god,_ Bruce, baby, you're so— I’m going to, I’m gonna—”

Clark realized with a jolt he was _looking,_ he was looking at the tight draw of Hal’s balls, through Bruce, the thick, long length of his cock, jutting out from the unzipped fly of his jeans, veins bulging and flushed; he was scenting the spurt of that cock hungrily, like he _needed_ it, and Clark closed his eyes in shame, flew back behind the door lightning quick, desperately thankful they both had never opened their eyes.

He flew back to his quarters, just as fast, his hearing still blown wide open, enough to hear that first, shaking groan Hal made, when he came in Bruce's arms, before he locked his senses down with a force of will. The mattress thumped under his weight when Clark sank down heavily.

Which was about when he realized: He was hard.

Oh, hell.

  
  
  


And so that was it, really.

Clark saw his best friend making out with the man he apparently didn't hate at all, and that was— It was fine. Clearly… Clearly Bruce didn't want to talk about it, they were keeping it on the DL or something, and that was fine too.

They deserved their privacy, the both of them, deserved it probably more than anyone Clark had ever known, and he was fine with it all.

Really.

Days passed, weeks, and nothing happened, except Clark stopped sleeping at the Watchtower, stopped showering when Hal was in the locker rooms, stopped sparring with Bruce on red sun protocols. He didn't call the Cave in slow patrol nights, didn't linger after meetings to chat about nothing, found excuses to blow off Tuesdays at the diner.

And, look, yes, it was… too much, he was going overboard, it was just that…

Just that whenever he looked at Bruce, or Hal, he was trapped in that moment again, standing at the edge of that threshold, watching two of the most beautiful people he had ever seen, maybe his whole life, kissing each other like that, hungrily, their hands roaming those gorgeous, perfect bodies, had heard the urgency of their heartbeats and the rasp of their breathing, had practically tasted Hal’s come in his mouth, the salt-bitter monsoon of it on his tongue—how was he supposed to have any kind of conversation after that? How was he supposed to keep a straight face -ha!- and pretend his life hadn't been irrevocably altered?

But if once was incidence and twice was coincidence, then thrice was a pattern, and Clark was, in a way, not even surprised when he walked into work one Thursday morning, after the third cancelled lunch, and found Bruce Wayne lounging in his desk chair, like it was something plush and leather-upholstered, and not an awful retail atrocity with zero lumbar support and squeaky wheels.

Bruce gave him that sultry-eyed once-over as he walked towards the bullpen, much to Cat Grant’s delight, who had perched up on Clark's desk to chat with the visiting celebrity.

“Carl, isn't it?” Bruce said silkily, and Clark thinned his lips.

“Clark Kent, Mr. Wayne,” he said testily. “We’ve met, ten or twelve times.”

“Oh, no, that's impossible,” Bruce replied airily. “I never forget a…” his eyes traveled down Clark's chest, past his belt, lingering over his thighs before rising back up to his eyes, “a face like that.”

Clark glared, because that was what was expected of him, praying no one could tell that way his cock had twitched under Bruce’s gaze, like it had been a physical caress.

“You’re in my chair.”

“We could share,” Bruce suggested, and Cat’s eyes were huge, Disney-princess enormous.

“Mr. _Wayne,”_ Clark gritted out, and Bruce laughed, low, seductive, the sort of laugh you reserved for dinner on the third date.

“My press office tells me you wanted a comment about the new R&D setup,” Bruce said, eyes glittering with mirth.

“A phone call would have more than sufficed, Mr. Wayne.”

“Oh I know. I just like giving some things… the personal touch, you might say. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Holy Mary, Mother of God, this _man_.

“Right here’s fine,” Clark said, and Cat practically leapt up to stomp on his foot before adding, “The second conference room’s free all morning!”

Bruce beamed at her, and she blushed. “See?” he said, getting up, grinning wickedly. “The second conference room, we’ve got it all to ourselves. Tell me, Miss Grant, does this conference room have a door that locks?”

“Oh.” Her eyes were flitting between Clark’s exasperated face and Bruce’s blatantly seductive one. “ _Oh?_ Yes, it does?”

“Excellent. Come on, Carl. We don't have all day.”

  
  


The mask dropped the moment the door locked.

“Alright,” Bruce said, but it was Batman’s voice, brusque, commanding, layered with anger like tempered glass. “Talk.”

“Talk? You're the one who ambushed me, Bruce!”

“And you know exactly why.” Bruce crossed his arms over his chest, barely even pulling at the seams of the jacket, it was so perfectly tailored. “You’ve been avoiding me. Why.”

“I— It's nothing, Bruce. I’m— I’m sorry.”

“I don't want your _apology,”_ Bruce snapped impatiently. “I want to know _why.”_

Clark was flushing now; he could feel the heat rising up his neck, could feel the hot burn in his cheeks, in the tips of his ears. “I… I saw you. You and Hal. In the locker room, a few weeks ago.”

“Yes, I know, so?”

Clark staggered. “You… know?”

“Jordan saw you leaving,” Bruce said irritably. “Is _that_ why? You can take the boy out of Kansas?”

“What? No. _No,_ Bruce, I was just… There's a conversation here, that we… haven't had. And I wondered. I wondered if there was a reason, if there was something I had done, to make you feel like.” Clark closed his eyes. His voice was shaking. His throat felt thick, clumsy. “Like you couldn't be honest with me. Like I would… lash out at you, maybe, if you told me the truth.”

There was a pause, that felt so long as to be interminable.

“No.” Bruce had slipped his voice half a register, inexplicably gruff. “Look at me.” Clark obeyed. Bruce looked flushed, but his eyes were bright and steady. A thoughtful frown had notched deep in his brow. “It wasn't anything you did. I was— I don't make a habit of talking about myself. Of telling the truth. And I was— I was embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed.”

“I was… In the beginning, I was, ah. Infatuated with you. It was. There was a concern, that if I told you, you might ask— I thought you would ask if I was in love with you, and I didn't— I was trying to avoid that conversation.”

Clark had an intrinsically perfect sense of gravity. He gripped the back of a chair now anyway, and then sank down into the seat. “So let me get this straight. You thought… You thought that if you came out to me, my first and immediate conclusion would be… ‘He’s in love with me.’” Clark stared at him. “Because you think I’m… what? Pathologically self-obsessed? A narcissist? Or just plain homophobic?”

Bruce looked like he’d been slapped in the face. “Clark…”

“Fuck you. How long have we been friends? Eight years? Ten? And that's what you think of me. _That's_ what you think I'd say, to my  _best friend._ ” Clark rose to his feet, unshakeable, steady. The anger was light and vicious, surging through him like a solar flare, making every edge sharper, every color richer. “Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, Bruce, go fuck yourself.”

Slamming a door on someone had never felt better.

 

 

_“Is this what you want?” a dark voice murmured. Clark arched into that touch, that hot glide of a tongue stroking up the underside of his cock, along that fat throbbing vein, root to tip, swirling, sucking at the head, and he was groaning, trembling._

_“Tell me, Clark, sweetheart,” a body dragging slowly up his, just as heavy and broad, rippling with hard muscle, dark haired and blue eyed, and, “Bruce,” Clark was groaning, “Bruce, please, please,” and Bruce was straddling his hips._

_Clark could feel his cock brush against his ass, against the cleft, and Bruce was leaning down, grinding their hard, leaking cocks together, a slow steady rocking, and saying, “I want you to fuck me,” low and desperate, “I need you to fuck me, Clark, I want your mouth, I want your tongue so deep inside me, I want to paint your mouth with my cum, I want you to drink it down, baby, I want to ride that beautiful cock, are you close, tell me you're close.”_

_Clark was practically off the bed, spine arching off the mattress, gripping those hips down, so he could grind them together, could fuck his hungry cock along Bruce’s, and Bruce leaned down once more._

_And that smirk shifted, brightened. A laughing smile, brown hair, dark, melting, chocolate warm eyes, and Hal Jordan was saying, “What are you waitin’ for, Boy Scout?” taunting and full of joy, test pilot hands jacking him off so hard—_

Clark woke up to sticky hands and a growing wet spot on his sheets, and groaned.

Somewhere, Clark was sure, the devil laughed.

  
  
  


Nothing changed.

Clark _worked_ to hide it, now, compensated by involving himself with other members of the League, and if sometimes he caught Hal watching him with a quiet, calculating look in those dark, intelligent eyes, well, that was no one's business but his.

Because wasn't this rich?  
Man, wasn't this just the absolute fucking height of hypocrisy, this Everest-high peak that Clark had managed to scale?

Bruce had never come out to him, because he thought Clark would have—would have _realized_ Bruce was in _love_ with him. That was a perfectly ordinary English sentence, wasn't it.

Bruce had never come out to him, for that ridiculous reason, and the absolute fucking _second_ he did, _Clark_ fell for him. What kind of bullshit ass-backwards karmic justice was that, is what Clark would like to know.

And if he had expected Bruce to corner him before, that was one thing. Now that... _everything_ had changed, he definitely hadn't expected _Hal_ to try it, let alone successfully manage it, but manage it he did, finding Clark in that same locker room on the Watchtower, right after Clark had stepped out of the shower and pulled on the uniform. His hair was still damp and curling, and Hal walked into the locker room, and kicked the door mostly closed behind him.

Clark stiffened. Eyes flitted to the door, and then to Hal, who was standing directly in his way, not that that was any _real_ obstacle for Superman, except for how it actually definitely was.

Hal was smirking at him like he could tell exactly the moment when Clark realized there was no escape.

“Hey, Big Blue.”

“Hal.” His voice was curiously hoarse.

Hal sauntered up to him, and Clark wondered if he had always walked that way, that long, sinuous stride to his movement, that made Clark’s mouth dry and something sharp twist in his gut. “So. Bruce thinks you hate him,” Hal said conversationally, coming to a stop about two inches inside Clark’s personal space. His hands were buried in his pockets, the set of his shoulders loose, relaxed.

Clark started to shake his head, _no, he didn't hate Bruce, of course not,_ and Hal laughed, “Oh, no, I know, of course you don't. Paranoia. You know. Comes with the territory.”

But Clark didn't know, did he? These were uncharted waters for him, that Hal had become familiar in. Bruce had extended friendship to Clark, a rare, precious thing, and it had made Clark feel special, for a time, valued. And then it turned out there had always been something greater, something unbearably lovely, within his reach, and Clark had been too self-absorbed and too  _stupid_ to notice.

“See, I have this theory,” Hal was saying, and had he taken another step towards Clark? How had Clark not noticed? “That it isn't because you're angry with Bruce that you're avoiding him.” Hal’s fingers were reaching out, tracing the ridges of the S crest of his uniform, like it was a perfectly ordinary, reasonable thing to do, like he did it all the time. “I think it's because you want…”

And here was the problem with wearing a skintight goddamn uniform right. The problem was, it was impossible to fucking _hide_ anything; Hal’s eyes were resting on the bulge, a slow, deliciously satisfied smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

“Us. You want both of us.” Hal’s hand had reached up to his throat, his fingertips resting over the carotid, where the beat was steady and fast.

His other hand tapped his communicator.

“Bruce,” he said softly, in that low, rich voice, “how fast can you make it to the locker room?” A beat. “Hurry, baby. I’ve got a surprise.”

Another tap to disconnect, and then it was Clark being crowded up against the lockers, and Hal was—was doing _nothing,_ gliding his palms down Clark’s side, stroking closer and closer but never _touching._ A quiet chuckle escaped his lips when Clark bucked his hips closer, desperate for _anything,_  a hint for friction, not daring to move more for fear that this would stop as suddenly as it had begun.

The door opened.

“H—” A long pause. “Hal?” Quieter, forbidding.

And Hal disengaged from Clark completely, covered the distance between him and Bruce in seconds, shoved down the cowl and tugged their mouth close. At the very last second, then, when Clark felt like all the blood had left his brain, and his cock was so hard it was  _throbbing_ _,_ Hal turned over his shoulder. His eyes were heavy-lidded, all that rich melting chocolate drowned in black. Clark could taste the scent of him too, that heady note of arousal, and he couldn't hold off, couldn't not press his palm against the root of his hard, leaking cock.

“Clark,” Hal said, holding Bruce close, and Bruce's heart was picking up too, oh god, “Watch. I want you to watch.”

And he turned back around, and angled his jaw, and kissed Bruce hard, furious, sloppy with want, and Clark couldn't hold back the sound that came pouring out of his open mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

It had always been on the Watchtower.

Never in Hal’s apartment, never at the Manor, and the concept of fucking in the Cave seemed verboten, never mind that it kinda got Hal going.

But right from the beginning, their place had been the Watchtower—specifically, Hal’s quarters on the ‘Tower, because Bruce had furnished his space like a raging ascetic, and Hal liked getting fucked without the impending risk of sciatica, thank you very much.

Which now, was what they did, mostly, but that was not how it had begun.

  
  


The first time had been right on the heels of this goddamn clusterfuck of a four-way interplanetary ceasefire getting fed to the dogs—the Lanterns had put down the ensuing violence after practically razing two of the planets to the ground, and Hal had spent hours, days, flying through the wreckage, choking on dust, scanning for survivors, the scent of rotting corpses and acrid smoke so thick in the air he could barely breathe, even though the suit’s extant filtration systems.

He had arrived at Earth, feeling raw, aching deep within his bones, the ragged persistent bite of failure leached into his blood—and found the JLA in a firefight with Luthor and, horrifyingly, the Joker. But his game was off, of course it was, and he fucked up more than once, vented the sum of his rage into the fight, and Bruce found him afterwards, slammed him up into a wall, and roared his disapproval in a torrent of foul words.

And that had felt good, somehow, as sickening as it was.

Hal had collapsed against that wall, bowed his neck and taken the abuse, because he deserved it, of course he deserved it—

Bruce had gone quiet, he realized.

There was a gauntlet anchored over his chest, curved around the base of his throat, but it wasn’t pushing now, was just resting there.

“Jordan,” Bruce said, quietly. “Are you alright?”

He had to laugh then, had to, because what kind of question was that? _‘Are you alright?’_ No, I’m fucking _not,_ Spooky, what the hell are you gonna do about it?

But he had shaken, and laughed, and felt something wet slide down his cheeks, and then Bruce’s hands had been touching his face, and jesus holy hell, he was crying, _crying_ in front of _Batman,_ was there no new rock-bottom he was planning to leave unexcavated today?

“Hal,” Bruce whispered. “Jesus, Hal, what’s going on?”

Those hands had cupped his face, and Bruce was stroking his hair, and saying, _‘Sssh, it’s alright, it’s alright,’_ and Hal was amazed at how often he forgot Bruce was a father, had taken in orphans and lonely little girls, raised them all to be heroes. How often had he done something like this? How often had he held someone through the aftermath of a nightmare?

“You’re going to be okay,” Bruce was saying, softer than anything he had ever heard, and he was breaking Hal’s heart, did he even _realize,_ did he even know what he was doing, and Bruce said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry about today,” and Hal choked a sound into his throat, because no one should apologize to him, that was _incorrect,_ it was _wrong,_ and he had surged forward, with the singular aim of _don’t let Bruce apologize again,_ and slotted their mouths together.

  
  


Hal had been nineteen the first time they practiced HALO jumping. The jump had been from a low-alt prop plane, a rusty old bucket two years from being scrapped, and his CO had opened up the hatch, and air had howled into the cabin. Hal had seen the horizon dead on, no glass in the way, and he had not even felt the stirring of fear, mostly because the idea of tossing yourself out of a plane was… ridiculous. Who did that. No one did that. Crazy people did that.

And then he’d shuffled to the edge, assumed position, and stepped out into the air.

It was the fall, the insanity of the drop, when you were reduced to nothing, a speck, the wind howling in your ears, battering against your arms and your legs, like it wanted to rip your limbs away from your chest, like a roaring physical thing. It was the moments after, when you had, somehow, _impossibly_ , acclimatized to the fall, and you were almost laughing with it, with the sheer, mad thrill of it, that immediacy of connection, when you were solely within your own body, full inhabited within yourself.

That was what kissing Bruce felt like.

The drop, the race, the potent, tidal wave of _yes._

He bit hungrily at that mouth, felt that hot melting slide of their tongues, fingers slip-sliding over the frictionless armor plating of the Batsuit, until he shoved the cowl back, and gripped the back of his neck, dragged his fingers through the damp layers of his hair, kissing so hard his jaw was started to ache with it. Bruce’s hands were curling around his ass, the cup in his suit, rubbing over his hard cock, and Hal could only buck into that pressure, could onyl whisper a string of rushed, _‘fuck, fuck, Bruce, oh god,’_ while Bruce rearranged the shape of the world with his hands and his mouth and his tongue.

“Take it off,” Hal was saying, working at a buckle, “come on, take it off, I want to see you.” Bruce ripped off the utility belt, let it thunk down on the floor, too loud, and Hal huffed a laugh, peeling off the top of those pants, throat drying out when he saw that cock. He wasn’t even hard all the way yet, the suit had been too tight for that, but he was already—

“Motherfucker, what _is_ that,” Hal mumbled, feeling a little dizzy at the sight of— He felt Bruce go still, flinch almost, and he looked up, seen the tense shape of his mouth. “Oh baby no,” Hal whispered, finding that soft, delicious mouth again, pressing butterfly kisses to the corner of his lips, along his jaw, to the soft bite of his earlobe, and Bruce had sunk into Hal’s body again. Hal could feel it now, feel the slow, steady thickening of that massive cock, against his abs, against his thigh, Bruce was rubbing against him, a steady, spine-melting rub, taking his pleasure against Hal’s body, and oh _god,_ what that did to him, the way that _ached._

“Want you to fuck me,” Hal mumbled into the curve of his neck, where the Batsuit pulled tight at the base of his neck. Bruce stuttered in his movement, groaned harsh and quick, hands tightening around Hal’s waist. _Is that what you like._ “Want to feel you come inside me, want to feel it, god, I bet you feel so _good,_ baby, bet I’ll feel it for _days._ ”

“Shut up, shut up,” Bruce whispered back frantically, but he was fucking against Hal’s stomach now, gripping the back of his head for savage, ruthless kisses, letting Hal grind his cock against the palm of his hand, through his pants, and Hal couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop the formless, unstrung sounds from his throat, he just wanted, just wanted—

“I’m going to— _Bruce,”_ and then he was coming, coming, in loose, hot shudders, coating his pants, gripping Bruce’s wrist like amanacle to his own cock, and Bruce growled, deep inside his chest, teeth latching furiously around Hal’s neck, thrusting once, twice, before he was coming in thick, hot spurts, painting the uniform with spatters of white.

And Hal had dropped his head back against the wall, and felt Bruce’s forehead drop heavily to his shoulder, and he had carded his fingers through that soft, lovely hair, and smiled up at the ceiling like an idiot, and thought, _‘So that’s what that’s like.’_

  
  


It wasn’t like he had never had good sex.

It wasn’t even like he hadn’t had sex with someone who knew him as both Hal Jordan, kick-ass test pilot, and as Hal Jordan, Senior Green Lantern.

It wasn’t that Bruce was a guy, or had an incredible cock, or the sneaking suspicion that was Bruce got off on wasn’t kissing Hal, or fucking him, or getting a mouth around said incredible cock, but actually, and this was amazing, that he maybe got off on how hard Hal came, every time they decided to get together.

All of those things were true, but none of them were _that_ new, mostly, and Hal figured this would be like every other casual thing he’d ever had, would eventually peter out to something ordinary and manageable, until one of them got bored, and stopped calling, and the other took the hint.

In point of fact, Hal even looked forward to the second time, because it was his experience that the second time was always better than the first. You got all the awkwardness out of the way, you knew what you liked, what they liked, you could get down to it faster, hotter, smoother.

So Hal didn’t feel a lot of compunction, about meeting Bruce’s eye after a JL meeting, letting a dark, hungry smile curl up around the edge sof his mouth, thinking about the sound Bruce has groaned into his neck when he came, the visceral sharp pain of his teeth clawing into his neck, let the heat of it rise up to his eyes. And then he had walked away, and prgrammed his door to let Batman in without authorization.

Bruce had come in, after some twenty-odd minutes, stripping off the armor on his way to the bed, and Hal had tugged lazily at his hard cock, watching new skin reveal itself with a greedy, grasping kind of want, the marble-pale architecture of his impossible body, feeling light-headed with how much he _wanted._

And it had been better, it had been so much better, Bruce’s mouth tracing the ridge of his pelvis, hot and wet along his cock, laving his balls, opening him up on his tongue, sloppy and messy and so, so fucking hot, Hal had almost come from just that, had wept his pleasure into his pillow, had begged for Bruce’s cock to fuck him, fuck him, get in him already. But Bruce hadn’t, had said, _‘Can you come from this? Just from this?’_ lifting his hips off the mattress, pushing him onto his knees, so he didn’t have any friction at all, two thick, blunt fingers pressing at his hole, the breach slow and hot, finding the gland with unerring ease, and then rubbing, just rubbing, like he had rubbed his cock against Hal’s abs that first time, and Hal had said, _‘Fuck, of god, fuck you, you son of a bitch, I’m going to, Bruce, I cna’t—’_ and “Yes,” Bruce had insisted, and kissed his spine, the small of his back, fucking Hal on his fingers, massaging his sides, “Yes you can, sweetheart, come for me, come _now_ ,” and that had been all it took, Hal had come so hard he didn’t even remember half his fucking orgasm, just had the sense-memory of Bruce’s big, hard cock thrusting blindly at his hole, the clecnh of his balls, and the hot wet slide of his come, coating his back, as they collapsed back onto the mattress.

“So that was interesting,” Hal had mumbled into the pillow, after recovering from the afterglow, and Bruce had rolled off him and onto his back with a sigh.

“Not the word I would’ve chosen,” he said, staring at the ceiling. Hal watched him from the eye that wasn’t smushed into the pillow. Apparently, Bruce Wayne was that sort of awful person who glistened with sweat. How could life be so unfair? “But sure. Interesting.”

“You wanna try again?”

Bruce turned to him, and stared flatly. _Shit._ Hal’s stomach had yawed sharply off-kilter, the deck of a storm-tossed ship, and _why the fuck did you open your mouth, you idiot whore, of course he isn’t interested in a repeat,_ and Bruce said, “I’m not fifteen, Jordan. It’s going to take a while, before we go again.”

Hal’s answering smile had been unbidden, brilliant, and he patted Bruce’s shoulder lazily. THe relief was a lax, heavy thing, sodden in his veins like too much whiskey, and he curled up a little closer. “‘Kay,” he said, butting his head closer, until Bruce reached out and stroked his hair. “Stay here till you wanna go again.”

“You’re falling asleep,” Bruce pointed out from far, far off.

Hal curled around his massive bicep like a body pillow, and said, “Five minutes, asshole,” except it didn’t quite come out right, before drifting away.

  
  
  


So like he was saying, it wasn’t like this was new ground.

Hal just couldn’t figure out _why_ Bruce was with him, when the guy was so obviously in love with Superman. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to figure it out—Hal had never seen two people so instinctively gravitate towards each other before in his life. In the beginning, he had figured they were keeping it quiet, keeping it to themselves, but then he heard about Diana, and that brief but disastrous time with Lois, and about Selina Kyle, and wondered if it was somehow possible they both didn;t… know.

Or, more likely, had decided not to.

Negative impact on team cohesion—that was how Hal figured Bruce might have put it, to Clark. Might’ve said, _We aren’t going to risk the Justice League for a few cheap fucks,_ something deliberately cruel, enough to hurt old Blue just enough that it would destroy the… potential of whatever they could’ve had.

Hal wondered how the hell you remained friends after something like that.

And then Bruce had found him that day, in the locker rooms, had tugged him in for a kiss, and another, until it was spiralling out of their control, the way it always did. Something had prickled on his neck, a warning, and Hal had opened his eyes long enough to see Clark at the door, for the briefest imprint of a second, hovering a foot off the ground, his fists clenched, his eyes shut, his shoulders sloped down, this look of terrible, heart-breaking anguish on his face, a hollow and yearning loss, and Hal had realized a few thigns in an instant.

One, that Bruce and Clark had never had that conversation.

Two, that Clark was possibly only just about to realize he was in love with Bruce.

And three.

Hal fucked Bruce that night, bent over that limber, insanely flexible body, folded him in half, and fucked him hard, until Bruce had clenched down and come on nothign but his cock, and thne fucked him gain, harder and longer, touched that soft cock, massaged his balls, whispered the worst kind of filth into hisears, until Bruce was tightening on him again, helpless, until he was shooting clear strings of slick, and then Hal had flooded him with come, had obliterated his bones inside the sweet clench of his body.

And three. That Hal was about to… A countdown clock had just been instituted over the reaminder of this… thing that they had. Hal was going to lose Bruce, was going to lose him forever, because once he realized. Once Bruce realized Clark wanted him back, what the _fuck_ kind of chance did someone like Hal Jordan stand?


	3. Chapter 3

Clark had never drowned, but this, he thought, is what it must feel like, when you couldn't fucking _breathe_.

“Bruce,” he groaned, and the name somehow split into multiple, stumbling syllables, as Bruce slid deeper into him, and then deeper still. Every time Clark thought he was done, Bruce would hold him a little tighter, sink a little more of that huge cock, and Clark couldn't breathe around it, couldn't even swallow.

His mouth was open, hanging open, his cheek crushed to the pillow. Hal was kneeling beside him, stroking his back. “That's good, baby, you're doing so good,” he was saying, before kissing Clark, tracing the aperture with his lips, sliding in deep to taste him, sucking on his tongue. “Doesn't he feel good? Like you can't breathe? Like he's shifting around your insides for that goddamn meatcleaver of a cock? Do you like it, baby?”

Clark made some kind of sound, and Hal laughed, stroking his cheek. Bruce had bottomed out, finally; Clark could feel those balls resting on his, heavy and hot.

“Can I— Clark, can I move—”

Clark jerked back against him, beyond words. _Yes, yes, move in me, come on._ And Bruce pulled out, nearly all the way, unless only the tip was buried in, and Clark’s rim was hungrily pulsing around that, that fat mushroom head.

“Fuck me, come _on_ , you son of a bitch,” Clark growled, and Bruce—rammed into him, vicious. Clark practically screamed from it, from that hard, cruel slide. It wasn't so much a matter of finding his prostate; Bruce was so big, he was crushing those nerves, fucking right along the gland, making Clark shake and leak all over the sheets, fists ripping through the bedclothes, panting into the pillow like a dog, trying not to clench around that cock while it brutalized his insides.

“Christ,” Hal whispered, pushing back his hair from his forehead, “you’re a _mess_. You needed this, didn't you? Needed it so bad.”

Clark tried to reply, whined low in his throat, and Hal rewarded him with another sloppy kiss, before pulling away, shucking off his jeans, the last article of his clothing, and lying down so his groin was flush with Clark's face.

On any other bed, this would have been impossible. But Bruce didn't believe on skimping when it came to mattresses, apparently. Thank god.

Hal’s hand had resumed stroking his cheek. “Come on, baby. Give me that mouth.”

Bruce had set a rhythm, a hard, punishing thrust, cored him open and Clark barely had enough sense to open his mouth wider, and let Hal do the rest of the work, shove the leaking head of his cock on Clark's tongue. Clark sucked hungrily, sucked at that taste, wanted to taste Bruce too now, wanted to taste the way he felt in his ass—

“Oh fuck, fuck, you're perfect,” Hal was whispering, his hands gripping Clark’s hair, and he couldn't get enough leverage to thrust, while lying on his side, but he could ram his cock deep into Clark's throat, for long, long seconds, past his nonexistent gag reflex, let the fine muscles of his throat twitch and flutter around the head of his cock. Clark had stopped breathing entirely. Stopped listening. Stopped being.

There was nothing more to him left. Nothing of reason or logic, just the grip of Bruce’s hands on his hips, the white out pleasure of his cock fucking into him, the sting of Jordan’s nails digging into his scalp, the weight of his cock on Clark’s tongue, saturating his mouth, letting them fuck him, use him, destroy him.

“Beautiful,” Bruce was whispering, “you take it so good, sweetheart, you're so goddamn beautiful,” like he was in the middle of a religious experience, and that, it was that, the sound of Bruce’s voice, so awed and wrecked, that keeled him over, that pushed him over the edge.

“Christ, he’s coming,” Hal said raggedly, “oh god, Clark, _Clark,_ ” and Clark felt Hal empty himself down his throat, reached out to grab Hal by that perfect ass, until his balls were pulsing against his chin, Hal’s spine curling over as he shot come into his mouth, until it dribbed down the sides and onto the pillow.

Bruce had gone still, the grip of his hands vicious. He was shaking, trembling. Clark twisted a little more, saw the destroyed expression on his face, and his chest twisted into a vise, he was _aching_ for it, aching for him, wanted to touch that astonishingly breakable face, wanted to kiss his mouth, his brow, the silk-smooth skin of his eyelids, _‘it’s okay, it’s okay,’_ but Clark couldn’t have moved if he tried, so all he said was, “Bruce,” one last time, and then Bruce was thrusting erratically, a hard one-two jolt, and then burying his face against the center of Clark’s back, shuddering as he came, whispering his name.

  
  
  
  


Clark woke up in an empty bed, but that was alright. He could hear the shower running, and could see movement in the private sitting room, on the other side of the bedroom’s half-open doors. The western wall was all windows, and the afternoon sun was streaming in, golden and relentlessly cheerful. He groaned, and then heaved out of bed, pulling on his pants and not much else.

It was Hal, in the bathroom, he could tell, but a shower could wait.

Until he got back to Metropolis.

He walked down to the doors, pushed them open a little farther, found Bruce sitting at a breakfast nook, a pot of tea and the remains of a sandwich on the table, the rest of a rather generous breakfast still waiting in the cart, like this was some fancy five-star room service, and not Bruce’s house. Rich people's lives, Clark figured.

“Good morning,” he said, and Bruce glanced up at him, before going back to the news open on his tablet.

“It is at that,” he replied. His voice was still a little hoarse, and set a ricochet of sparks crackling down Clark’s spine.

 _‘We need to talk.’_ The words were on the tip of his tongue, accreting force in his mouth, wanted out now, now, _now._

_We need to talk._

_I need to know._

“Are you in love with him?” was what came out instead, and Bruce went very, very still. His heart rate had picked up. He put the coffee cup down, and got up out of his seat. Bruce wasn’t dressed either, not in much, just a pair of loose sweatpants, the kind Clark would’ve sworn up and down someone like Bruce would never even touch.

Bruce leaned against the back of his chair, crossed his ankles lightly, rolling his weight to one foot. “Yes,” he said, and Clark closed his eyes.

Just when he thought he had discovered the outer limits of his own duplicity, Clark exceeded every one of his own fucking expectations. Wasn’t that just stupendous. Just fucking great.

 _You lost him,_ were the words pounding in his head, sliding in his veins like barbs of microscopic kryptonite. _You lost him,_ he kept thinking, like Bruce was a prize to be gained, something to be _had,_ a thing to be _owned,_ that was how his infantile, pathetic brain had framed it. _You lost him._

Like Clark had ever had him to begin with.

“But that’s not what you should be asking.”

Clark opened his eyes. Bruce hadn’t moved. Those pale, pale eyes were watching him now, and in this light they seemed almost colorless, just twin pinpricks of black in a sea of nothing. Eerie. All-seeing. It felt like the whole room had somehow gone quieter, like some sound that had been previously been there had now been erased.

“It isn’t?” Clark asked. His voice was rough, rougher than it ever had been last night.

“You should be asking, did I ever stop being in love with you?”

Clark’s hands were shaking, he realized. It was a minute tremor, invisble to the naked eye, but it was there, in his bones, the sharp, unadulterated edge of adrenaline. “Did you?” he asked, and wished he hadn’t said anything at all.

“ _Never_.”

There was a kind of sadness in his eyes, a kind of wistfulness, like he thought Clark’s reaction would be. Not good, somehow, so Clark didn’t bother with words, because they would fail him, now, at this moment of things when the whole world seemed like it had decided to hinge itself on a handful of seconds.

He crossed the room instead, cradled Bruce’s jaw in his palms and brushed their lips together, heart beating so fast he could hear nothing else, feel nothing else, except for the slow drift of those hands along his sides, curling around his waist, kissing so softly it was almost painful, almost teasing, his whole body shaking with the need for more, more _now._

Their lips clung together when he pulled away, and Clark let the unbearable sweetness of that uncoil in his body, let it suffuse the air, and then—

Paused.

Frowned.

“What?” Bruce asked quietly. His thumb had hooked into the hem of Clark’s pants. He was stroking the warm skin underneath, just a steady idle drift. On another day, in another moment, Clark would’ve been able to map his fingerprints from that touch alone.

“The shower’s off,” he said.

“Mm?”

“It’s Hal.” A beat, to confirm. “He’s gone.”

  
  
  


Barry answered the Watchtower’s commline, apparently on monitor duty today.

“Yo, Bats! Sup?”

Clark could hear him through Bruce's commlink. He remembered a time when the kid had been too awed to form complete, coherent sentences around the both of them. Better times.

“Is Green Lantern on board?” Bruce asked.

“Sure. What d’you need Guy for?”

Bruce frowned. “Not Gardner, Jordan.”

“Uh, Hal’s on GL duty, man.”

“Lantern emergency?” 

“Nah." Barry's voice was muffled, like he was eating in the monitor room again. It was a measure of Bruce's disquiet, that he didn't lay into Barry right then for violating basic monitor duty protocol. "He’s somewhere the Tauron nebula cloud," Barry said. "Black market organ harvesting ring’s running their HQ out of an asteroid, apparently.”

“If it’s not an emergency…”

“Oh no, he volunteered,” Barry said. “Yeah, it’s been on his calendar a week or so, now. Speaking of, I’ve got a couple of pretty good seats to the Sharks-Cardinals game, now that's he's off-planet. I’m not really big on basketball, it’s Hal’s thing. You want 'em?”

“I’ll—I have to call you back.”

“Cool. Let me know about those tickets, yeah?”

Bruce shut off the link, and stared past Clark, his jaw flexing rapidly. There was a sense in his gut, a plunging icy sensation of freefall starting to gather, and Bruce said, “He planned this. He planned to leave.”

_He planned to leave me._

  
  
  


Clark offered immediately, of course. _‘Do you want me to,’_ he started to say and Bruce cut him off with a sharp, monosyllabic, “No.”

What could he have offered anyway, Bruce wondered bitterly. Do you want me to drag back a grown-ass adult, kicking and screaming, from sixteen hundred light years away? Do you want me to force him to talk to you, like we're passing notes in Algebra I?

_Do you like me? Y/N tick one!_

No. It was done. Hal had given his answer, and eloquently at that. Bruce could respect it. Bruce _would_ respect it.

Clark was still watching him.

Clark was still here.

That didn't make it better. _At least Clark is still here,_ wasn't the way that thought went. His presence didn't soothe the other ache, didn't plaster over the empty, gaping wound of Hal’s absence. Clark was no one's consolation prize, no one's replacement.

Evidently, that was something Hal hadn't understood.

Bruce stared past Clark’s shoulder. This was the first time Hal had visited the Manor, the first time they had fucked in Bruce's… home. It had been a purely logistical decision on Bruce's part; no matter how luxurious the bed in Hal’s quarter was, the three of them wouldn't have fit lying down, side to side, let alone anything more athletic. The decision had pretty much made itself.

Now, he wondered what Hal thought of the decision, what he had read into it: the first time Bruce brought him home, Clark had been the only change to their usual routine. Had he thought it was because of Clark? 

Hal hadn't touched him either, all of last night. Except for that one, scorching kiss aboard the ‘Tower, he had saved his touches for Clark, had taken him apart with that same obsessive greed he had used to unleash on Bruce, and that—that had gotten him so hard, last night, the sight of Hal’s mouth around Clark’s cock, cheeks hollowed, moaning around him, while Clark writhed desperately on the sheets, the image of them together, coming slowly apart, that he hadn't noticed, hadn't even noticed—

 _World's Greatest Detective._ It felt like some kind of awful joke. A tight fist was crushing the thing inside his chest. _You fucked up. What else is new._

So it was a “No,” that he said to Clark, and then walked past him into the bedroom, through the French doors and into the balcony, from where Hal must have taken off. He stared up, as if if he looked long enough, his eyes would see past the Earth’s atmosphere, see into the darkness of space, see a deep, emerald glow and a smile Bruce hadn't known until now he’d grown addicted to. A voice he hadn't known he needed. A man he hadn't known he loved.

He saw nothing, of course. It was a rare, sunny afternoon in Gotham, the sky an even Pantone blue, not a cloud in sight. It was hateful.


	4. Chapter 4

So it turned out that this was not a story about how Bruce thought he was in love with his best friend, and turned out to fall in love with someone else entirely.

No, apparently, things could get much, much worse than the plot of a bad romantic comedy. Who could have imagined.

Bruce fought to make sure it didn't affect him on the job, and it didn't, not out on the field. In the Watchtower, however, was another matter entirely—Bruce knew he was being sharper with the team than usual, knew he had to temper it, knew his and Clark's arguments had gone from good-natured bickering to something darker, more real, more tense. It was affecting the League as a whole, and Diana had started to look like she was planning to Talk with Bruce about the matter, an event he had begun to dread on the same level as minor global extinction events.

So it was, in this extremely backwards way, pretty good timing on his part when Hal Jordan crashed a routine JLA conference, looking like he'd gone six rounds with Mothra and the ghost of Muhammed Ali, and said, “Oh god, you're all here,” before collapsing where he stood, unconscious before he hit the ground.

  
  
  


It was Bruce that made it to his side first, which was saying something, considering that two of the people in this room had super speed, half could fly, and all but Diana and J’onn were younger than him by several years.

It was Bruce that took his pulse, and checked his breathing and ran his hands down his chest to—to do a preliminary check for any broken bones or swellings, signs of internal bleeding, that’s all. Bruce, who lifted Hal’s head onto his thigh, ran his hands through the mink-soft layers of his hair, for possibility of concussion.

And maybe, maybe that helped in other ways. Maybe it quieted that thing that had clawed at his ribs, that ice-shot of fear that had bulleted up his spine, maybe it wasn't altruistic, maybe it was selfish and wrong, to touch someone who so clearly didn't—

_Didn't want him, didn't need him, had never loved him—_

Maybe, but Bruce had never claimed to be a good man, had he? There had always been a reason for that.

It was J’onn who finally revived him, after Bruce had hurriedly moved away, while Doctor Mid-Nite hovered by, doing his tricorder routine. If Hal found out what Bruce had been—

Well. Never mind. What he didn't know, and all that.

Hal staggered into a chair at the conference table, after getting the all-clear from the Doctor, and projected a woman’s image into the center of the table. She was alien, and had once clearly been beautiful, before scar tissue had scanned over most of her face, leaving intact one lovely almond-shaped eye, and her full, perfectly formed mouth. Her robes covered her from neck to foot, strangely familiar, and of the two hands that were visible, one had been replaced by an eerie, skeletal prosthetic that gleamed like metal.

“So it turns out the black market organ harvesters aren't so much as harvesting for sale as they for, uh, repurposing the organic matter,” Hal started.

“Repurposing?” Diana asked sharply. “Like Darkseid?”

“Yahtzee. _Exactly_ like Darkseid.” He gestured at the projection. “This is Justeen. Before she started her new operation, she used to play Girl Friday to DeSaad, one of Darkseid’s lieutenants.”

“I remember him,” Clark said softly, his eyes fixed on some distant point.

“Yeah, I bet you do, big guy,” Hal replied. There were purple bruises under his eyes, like he hadn't slept for days, that merged into the rest of the bruising, along his jaw, down into the collar of his uniform, like he'd been slammed into a wall. Several walls. Repeatedly

He looked perfect.

Bruce couldn't stop _looking._ Very soon, that was going to start being a problem. He swallowed convulsively.

“Justeen managed to nab the tech Darkseid uses, or at least some of it, and reverse engineer the rest by herself. Of course, _she_ doesn't really care about conquering worlds, but the tech she has can be used to—”

“—build armies,” Bruce finished. “Mind-controlled armies for sale.”

Hal grimaced. “Ruins my big reveal, every fuckin’ time. Yes, Hermione, that's her gig. And she’s coming to Earth.”

“Interesting,” Bruce murmured, “that you think that's any kind of insult. What's the ETA on her arrival?”

“Days,” Hal sighed. “Hours, really. So what am I, in this analogy? Harry? Dumbledore? The Sorting Hat?”

“Oh no,” Bruce replied. “The preening, the self-aggrandizement, the repetitive natter about flight skills… You’d make an excellent ferret, Jordan.”

“Ferr— _Malfoy?!”_ Hal snarled. “Oh you motherfucker, I am going to take you _apart—”_

“Uh, Hal? Incoming alien invasion? Thousands of lives at stake?” Barry prompted and Hal scowled.

“But on the _bright side_ ,” Hal hissed, still glaring at Batman, “Earth’s a great harvesting market for her. A nice, low-tech farm for the taking, which means she’ll want to stay under the radar for as long as she can. She won't want to get into a firefight. Losing soldiers for her is losing saleable product, so that gives us something of an advantage.”

“She will target densely-populated areas, then,” Diana concluded. “We should post sentries.”

“ _Where_?” Oliver cut in. “New York? LA? Mumbai? Beijing? She could strike anywhere, and there just aren't enough of us.”

“No,” Bruce said quietly. “It's not going to be any of those places. It's going to be Rio.”

“Rio?” Hal repeated. “Why R— _Oh_.”

“Oh?” Barry looked from Bruce to Hal. “Why oh?”

“The Carnavale,” Hal said. “City population annually spikes by about six million, crowds are be fast-moving, largely transient. It takes time for people to even realize anyone’s missing, and the chaos of thousands of people in costume provides convenient camouflage. Gotta be Rio. Shit.”

“When is it? When does the Carnavale start?”

“Barry, buddy.” Hal stared at him. “You gotta leave that lab every now and then, man, watch some TV. It's already begun.”

  
  


But in the end, locating Justeen was relatively simple. A combination of facial recognition software, a small squadron of low-altitude surveillance drones, one commandeered Keystone satellite and CB radios tapping into the local PD broadcast and taxi drivers’ stations, was all it took. Batman and Cyborg coordinated the effort, while Clark and Oliver stood by and made idle, snide comments about the police state, and the slow death of privacy in the 21st century.

Which was very helpful, as Victor took pains to point out.

Hal went down with Diana and Barry to snap her up, put down the remaining soldiers, and move her to the holding cells in the Javelin for transport back to Oa.

What Hal didn't expect was Clark pulling up alongside the Javelin, just as he was crossing the Kuiper belt. Clark tapped on the glass and Hal rolled his eyes, disengaging the airlock and setting off about fifty alarm systems to let him in.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself, asshole,” Hal muttered, irascibly. “You couldn't wait until I got back?”

“That's interesting,” Clark said, and Hal punched in the flight sequence angrily before turning around to face him.

“I’ll bite. What is?”

“I expected the first thing out of your mouth would be something along the lines of, I’m so incredibly fucking sorry, Bruce, please please don't hate me forever, but, you know. This is interesting too.” Clark tipped his head to the side, in a move horrifyingly reminiscent of Batman. “You're somehow angry at… me?”

“If throttling you had any kind of effect, you best believe I’d be doing it now.”

“And why is—”

“You were supposed to be _there_ for him, you heartless son of a bitch! He’s been in love with you his whole goddamn life, practically, and you? What? Fuck him once and then dump his ass?”

Clark could hear the thunder of his heartbeat. Of both their heartbeats. It was filling up the cabin, bouncing off the walls, echoing back in his ears. “Is that what you think happened.”

“That's what I’m _sure_ hap—”

“He left.” The words were raw in Clark's throat. “You left him, and he left me.”

“What.”

“Hal,” Clark said quietly, smiling slow and bleak. “He might love me, he might even want me—”

“ _‘Might’_? What are you, brain damaged? Did you snack on lead as a baby?”

“—but he _needs you,”_ and that's what got Hal to shut up. “He needs you, okay? So, please, just. When this is done. When it's done, you need to go to him. Okay?”

Hal was watching him, dark curious eyes trained on Clark, seeing too much. Clark wanted to shove him away, wanted to escape. The Javelin’s walls felt like they were closing in on him, like a compactor’s end-plates. “And what about you?”

Clark took a hesitant step forward, and then another, and another, when Hal didn't move, didn't look anything but warm and inviting and unfairly lovely, leaning against the console of the Jav, all the universe stretching out behind him.

He curled a hand around his wrist, and slipped lower slowly, lacing their fingers together. Hal’s mouth has parted, his eyes had grown darker. Clark stepped into his space, their bodies flush, angled down and kissed, tracing the soft, velveteen plushness of his mouth, and then kissed deeper, hotter, but no quicker, just that low, steady ache of kissing someone you knew you wanted just as badly as they wanted you back.

And then, then, when they were right on the precipice of something more, he pulled away sharply, wrenched away with a rueful laugh.

“What was that,” Hal said, and the clutch of his fingers around Clark’s palm was an anchor in a lightning storm.

“Bruce needs you,” Clark said again, and then kissed him again too, on his cheek, on his brow, disentangling their fingers, pulling slowly away. “Promise me you’ll go to him.”

_“Clark.”_

“Promise me.”

It was Hal’s turn to look away, to focus on some distant point so their eyes wouldn't meet. “I promise,” he replied, and that was that.

  
  
  
  


That was that, really. Clark returned to the Watchtower, filed a report, spent some time in the monitor station with J’onn, sparred with Diana, took a nap.

And if J’onn looked at him oddly once and again, if Clark felt like he was slowly bleeding into his lungs, asphyxiating under the strain of his own blood, well, that was his problem to deal with, and nobody's else’s.

The Founders’ chambers were empty when Clark got there, so he showered, and then got back to the room with the vague idea of another nap, when—

“So, apparently, I have a type.”

Clark startled badly—not badly enough to drop his towel, thank the fucking Lord, but badly enough that Bruce’s mouth curved into a smirk.

Because it was Bruce, who apparently had used the emergency override to sit himself down at Clark’s chair, in Clark’s room and plant his feet on Clark’s desk.

“You’re in _my_ room,” Clark toward, glaring.

“Mm-hm.” Bruce looked thoroughly unconcerned. Well, bully for him. Clark wanted some time to sulk. _Alone_. “Self-sacrificing assholes. That's my type.”

“Fascinating. I presume Hal visited you?”

“Yes he did indeed. We had an interesting conversation.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“No.” Bruce shrugged, and that was a another cold lance, hooking between his ribs, gutting him like a trout. Bruce and Hal had— Well of course they had. That's what he had _wanted,_ wasn't it? That's why he had sent Hal to Bruce. “But it _was_ a very interesting conversation.”

“Great. Cool. Bruce, if you don't mind, would you seriously _please_ fuck _off—_ ”

“Hal thinks you're under the impression, somehow, that I need him more than I need you.”

“Get out.”

“Why.”

Clark blinked. “What?”

“Why would you. Why do you _think that.”_

“Because you _left me too,”_ Clark spat out, and oh, he hadn't expected that, that sudden black thing that poured out through his mouth, that evil, writhing _rage._ “Because you _walked away from me_ , when I was _right there,_ so what am I— what was I _supposed to think—”_ He was breathing hard, like he’d run the Equator a few thousand times in a row. “Please, just.” Clark pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll be fine. If you could just… go.”

“He broke my heart.”

Clark looked up.

“Do you understand that?”

“I— Yes.”

“No matter how much I— It didn't matter that— I was… angry. Hurt. I didn't… Clark, if I— I know what I did was cruel, and I wanted to, to apologize—”

“You don't have to—”

“Yes, hush, I do. I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry that I got so lost in my head, and that I hurt you, and that I pushed you away.”

“It's okay,” Clark hurried to say. “It's all okay, Bruce, it's all forgiven.”

“I can't even say it won't happen again,” Bruce added all in a rush, like the words were undammed, were pouring out of him like a flooded river, “but if there is a chance— a chance that I haven't— haven't somehow managed to destroy the way you felt about me, about Hal, about us—”

“You didn't,” Clark whispered, stepping forward to touch Bruce, touch his chest, feel the place where it beat against his ribs, “you haven't—”

“The come home,” Bruce begged, dropping his forehead against Clark’s, breathing the same air, letting his eyes fall closed like a man at prayer. “Hal’s waiting, the bed’s big enough. Come… Come home.”

Clark shivered, suddenly, though it wasn't form the cold, it was never from the cold. “That'll work, do you think?”

“We’ve crossed time and space and parallel dimensions. We ended the world, restarted the sun, altered the shape of reality a hundred times over. And if all that fails… I don't know if you know this, but I’m very, very rich.”

Clark laughed. “How is that relevant?”

“Private. Islands.”

There was a wealth of intent behind those two words, and Clark’s hand tightened on his chest. “That's pretty tempting, I’ll be honest with you.” But his voice was scraped raw, the bottom of the barrel hoarse, and it sure as hell wasn't the Caribbean getaway that was tempting him just then.

“Come home,” Bruce said again, and this time, Clark nodded, slight enough that it wouldn't dislodge the way they were pressed together. He never wanted to move from this place. Never wanted to step away.

Bruce was smiling, he realized after a second, and Clark couldn't stop from smiling back, couldn't stop the sweet, rich warmth that was bursting through his veins, chasing away the cold like nothing else.

“Okay,” Clark whispered. “Okay, just—I gotta put something on, gimme a second.”

Bruce did pull away at that, to raise a filthy, dark eyebrow. “No, you don't,” he pointed out roughly, sliding his hands possessively down Clark's naked chest. “I’m sure Hal wouldn't appreciate that at all.”

“Oh, _Hal_ wouldn't, would he?” Clark said, grinning. “Aren't we just the picture of saintliness today?”

“Sweetheart, if saintliness involved the two of you? I'd spend the rest of my life on my knees.”

Clark stopped smiling, while all the blood in his body rushed to fill up his cock. “Jesus, Bruce.”

“That's the idea.”

Clark swallowed around the thing in his throat. His hands were tight around Bruce. “Hal’s waiting, you said?”

Bruce smirked. And then his smile softened. “Home?”

Clark took his hand. “Home.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked it, remember to hit kudos! <3


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